|
|
  
|
|
For $20 (or more), a luxurious lunch
Restaurant reviewed 07/22/99 by Alison Arnett
No. 9 Park
Café Louis
In the gloomy days of the latest recession, fine-dining lunches practically dropped from sight, except for those patrons at the bastions of tradition like the Cafe at the Ritz.
But now we're in looser mood in a much-touted boom, and new restaurants are venturing into lunch territory. New York City restaurants banded together several years ago to offer $19.95 lunch specials and some still do it; other Big Apple restaurants are pumping up lunch trade with promises of three courses within an hour or even box lunches. Boston lags on such offers but still I decided to sally forth on a quest: Can I lunch at three of the best places in the city for under $20 a meal.
Radius, the showstopper of the current crop of new places for chef and co-owner Michael Schlow's exquisite cuisine, shows well in the daytime, its rather severely modern lines and shades of gray matching the business-suited clientele. We arrive without a reservation but are given perches at the communal table, and immediately begin sotto-voiced negotiations about what we want and what we can afford.
We opt for entrees, staying just barely under $20. Obviously to do this, only water and the free rolls would be acceptable accompaniments. The rolls are delicious and the water is fine and free.
Because Schlow lavishes such love and care on vegetables each main course is quite balanced. Maine lobster salad at $19 is a one of those deconstructionist affairs, each piece beautifully done, but lacking cohesion. The lobster was sweet and firm, with the unusual element of tofu alternating in a tail-shaped pattern. Around those were aspargus, green beans, snow peas, all cut in fine julienne. Sous chef Burke Forster later explained in a phone interview that the tofu was used to carry the flavors of the ginger and soy vinaigrette into the lobster meat without toughening the lobster by marinating it. I find the explanation more fascinating than the taste. On the other hand, I feel virtuously slender after such a pristine dish.
Sauteed soft-shell crab over basil mashed potatoes and in a winey reduction sauce dotted with tiny grape tomatoes is more satisfying at $18. But the dish we all dive for is the ribeye steak crusted with shallots and pepper and in a green peppercorn sauce at $19. It's as plump and delectable a piece of beef as you'd ever want to encounter; cholesterol worries are shelved.
We have no more dinero for dessert, but Paul Connors is the pastry chef and it would be criminal not to try at least a little something, no matter the budget. Caramelized grapefruit tart is spectacular, a cake on which is perched the most perfect, thin slices of candied fruit. With it is a tiny delicate glass fashioned of crystalized sugar and grapefruit juice, piled with a bracing muscat wine sorbet.
Another dessert is equally as fanciful: In a sea of coconut soup, a tuile cookie forms an island for a hauntingly flavored Thai basil ice cream. Tiny chunks of mango and pineapple float in the soup. It tastes like a dream but is logistically challenging. The soup splashes when one tries to get at the tuile and the ice cream, threatening all those dark suits.
No. 9 Park has a pleasant intimacy in the daylight, its muted colors soothing, the wait staff soliticious. Lunch prices here are lower and there is a three-course prix fixe for $24. Though that's over the limit, we figure we can mix and match, sharing a dessert.
One of chef-owner Barbara Lynch's signature dishes on the prix fixe menu is the crispy duck leg, lightly confited meat that is tender and savory. With it comes tiny white lentils nestled in a lovely, thin sheet of pasta. The dish is just right: heady flavors in pleasing, lunch-sized portions.
Lynch's pasta is always worth trying. One lunch I try spaghettini vongole, thin strands of pasta tossed with little clams, parsley, and bits of tomato in a spicy broth. The dish has verve, and its clear flavors make me smile, especially for $14. Another pasta dish for the same price, though, is disappointing on one tasting. Saffron-shaded cavatelli, a quill-shaped pasta, is just a shade too al dente and the sauce of Nicoise olives, tomatoes, and pieces of roasted shrimp has a muddy flavor.
I gaze enviously at the man next to me who's attacking grilled scallops over a potato puree, napped with a watercress sauce ($18). That I had tasted on a previous visit so I completely understand his look of contentment. Fried Ipswich clams ($9) perched in a big clam shell filled with a little toasted corn salad need salt, although I consider asking for seconds of the delicious salad. However, for the same price, an appetizer of steak tartare is an amazing bargain for carnivores: a hefty portion of delicious chopped meat perched on toast with plenty of thinly shaved black truffles.
Lunch teases the appetite for more of Lynch's cooking, I decide, covetously thinking of a dinner visit. On the other hand, the pace is slow for those on a tight schedule. A friend who lunches here often reports he sits at the bar and is in and out in 40 minutes.
But in the dining room, as the waiters return repeatedly to refill our ice tea glasses, we begin to tick up the minutes. By the time dessert, a lovely almond-scented creme brulee with a thin, crackling top, arrives, one of our party has ducked out. The remaining two share it, practically licking out the dish.
Cafe Louis is the place that makes me think of tossing aside the rest of the day's duties. It's not that the food is heavy - just the opposite is true. But this cool, spring-green oasis on a hot day tends to obfuscate other concerns. Here my companion and I decide to stick to appetizers, an easy choice since the salads, pastas, and pizza sound so enticing.
The waitress is so enthusiastic about the special warm salad of green beans, corn, and tomatoes, all picked that morning in Little Compton, R.I., and rushed to the city, that we share it. She's right: With only a little olive oil and snipped basil to enhance the flavors, it's truly summer on a plate. And well worth the $10 tab.
I opt for an egg salad sandwich topped with smoked salmon, the creamy, loose salad cut beautifully by the sharpness of the salmon at $15. The plate is surrounded by thin slices of cucumber, the salmon topped with curls of pickled fennel. It's so delightful that I could happily eat this every day of the week, and I usually don't even like egg salad.
My companion's dish ($14) is also wonderful, rigatoni with an elegantly creamy zucchini sauce, very light on the tongue. Chef David Reynoso explains in a phone interview that the sauce has no cream in it, just very fresh zucchini sauteed with onion and pureed with olive oil.
The splurge on the salad leaves us with no room on the budget for dessert but we decide to pony up for it anyway. After all who could resist cute little balls of coconut ice cream in a crisp almond tuile. Not cheap at $8 but the ice cream is handchurned and delicious. We float out daydreaming of more summer goodies, bushels of tomatoes, dozens of zucchini. Work seems like a distant concept. Luckily, Louis, the exclusive clothing store where the cafe is located, happens to be closed for inventory that day. We might have done some damage in our altered states.
So the answer is fine dining for $20 is possible, if you're willing to be creative about ordering. And if you cheat a little.
|
|
|
||
|
|
 Extending our newspaper services to the web |
of The Globe Online |
|